Leaps And Bounds
by masquerade97
Summary: Dr. Samuel Beckett never stopped leaping. Everywhere he goes, he changes history for the better. Sam and Dean Winchester have done nothing but try to keep people safe from the supernatural, and they've done their fair share of changing things for the better. One day, Dr. Beckett leaps into the hunter lifestyle. Destiel is involved.
1. Chapter 1

Dr. Samuel Beckett had been leaping for quite some time. He never really knew how much time was passing on a regular timeline, since he was always jumping from year to year, and sometimes he would stay there for a few days, while other times he would stay in the other person's body for weeks. However, he never leaped to a time that was outside his own lifetime, so generally any leap to a time prior to 1953 was impossible. He could remember one or two exceptions, but he'd been doing this so long he couldn't be sure.

He wasn't sure how Al, a good friend and senior officer on the program that started this whole mess, had kept the thing running. Without definitive proof that Sam was doing something to help people with Project Quantum Leap, the funding for the project was going to be cut off. This had been threatened on more than one occasion, in fact it had been threatened a few times in just the first few years. But each time Al appeared, he assured Sam everything was going well.

Al watched Sam from the present day, appearing as a hologram tuned to Sam's brainwaves, so only Sam (and a few minor exceptions) could see him. Al always brought along Ziggy, the parallel hybrid computer with an ego. That's what they called her anyway, though not to her face. She could usually find what Sam needed to change in any given scenario so he could leap again. Usually.

Whenever Sam made a leap into another person's existence, that person was sent to a waiting room of sorts. This room was in the present, wherever that was. The person would stay in the waiting room for however long it took Sam to fix whatever had gone wrong in their time. Often they were just as confused as the people working the Project, since Sam looked, to an observer, like the person he had leaped into, while the displaced person in the waiting room looked like Sam.

Sam Beckett had no idea what year it was, and when he looked down at himself, he never thought he looked any older. Al looked older, but Al didn't usually say what year it was, just popped in to offer his assistance and let Sam know what Ziggy thought of the situation.

"Don't worry about me," Al would say. "Worry about getting this right."

So Sam never really worried about it. He would leap, he would help people, he would leap again. It was just something that he did at this point.

There was one leap where Sam came to in a bed in a cheap motel. The last thing he remembered was club in the late fifties. Cigarette smoke had hung in clouds near the ceiling, and Sam had watched as a nervous young girl had made her first performance. Apparently, the first time this scenario had panned out, the girl hadn't been able to make ends meet and this job had been her last option before she had no choice but to turn to prostitution for money. Sam's job on this leap had been to get her the job. After he had helped her get the performance, Al told him, she was able to make a career for herself as a stage performer, and had used her success to start a children's charity. Sam was glad, as he always was, that something had turned out for the better. Then there was the bright blue light that always signaled a leap, and here he was, laying in a bed that wasn't anywhere near comfortable. He stretched his arms under the pillow and brushed something sharp and metallic with his hand. Concerned, Sam sat up and moved the pillow to the side, his eyes falling on a wicked looking knife.

"Oh boy," he said to himself. This did not seem like a situation he wanted to be in, but he did what he always did in a new timeline: he investigated.

When he got up, he realized he wasn't dressed, so he went through a duffel bag that was sitting by the door to the small bedroom and found clothes. He kept the knife he had found in his pocket, figuring that if this person slept with it under a pillow it might be useful.

A glance in the mirror revealed that Sam was in the body of a man in his late twenties or early thirties, sandy blonde hair and green eyes. He was tall too, a bit more than six feet. Sam couldn't quite place why this guy would need a knife as evil looking as the one sheathed in his pocket.

Around the motel room were a few empty beer bottles and quite a few guns and knives. It looked like someone had been cleaning them.

On the desk against the far wall of the room was a note. It read, "Went to grab something to eat. Don't start the case without me."

Case? What the hell? So this guy was some kind of cop? And had a partner?

The note was written on hotel stationary, and the address was somewhere in Oklahoma.

Sam dropped the note back to the desk and went back to the bedroom, looking through the duffel again, hoping for some kind of clue. He didn't find anything that was immediately helpful. What he did find was a stash of fake badges, a flask that was filled with something that Sam determined was water, and a box of salt. So that wasn't helpful, though it was weird. Next he searched the closet, but his finds there weren't any more helpful: a suit, a couple of dress shirts, a few ties, and an outfit that looked startlingly like a Priest's.

After a few minutes, he heard the lock click and the door to the room open. "Dean? Are you up yet?" a voice called.

"Who's there?" Sam asked, standing and walking into the main room.

The other man was tall, taller than this Dean person, and his dark hair was a little long. He looked amused. "It's Sam. Your brother?" he said. "How much did you two drink last night?"

"Probably more than was necessary," Sam, as Dean, said, making mental note of the other man's name while also wondering who Dean had been drinking with the night before.

The other Sam laughed at that. "Yeah, I'm sure. Anyway, I remembered your pie this time, so don't say I never did anything for you." He had set a few grocery bags on the desk and pulled out a boxed Apple Pie. Then he seemed to remember something else and looked around curiously. "Where's Cas?"

"Cas?" Sam asked, looking around.

"Yeah, Cas," the other man said, brow furrowed in confusion and concern. He held his hand up to his chin. "About so high? Wears a trench coat and always manages to have his tie on backwards?"

"Right, Cas," Sam said, running his hands down his pants' legs nervously.

"Is everything okay? Like, are you two...good? You seemed okay last night when I headed out to the bar," the other man said, his voice worried.

"Everything's fine," Sam said, with conviction, he hoped. "I just need a minute." He made his way to the bathroom and locked the door. "Alright Al," he said quietly, "now would be a really good time for you to show up and tell me what I'm supposed to do."

Meanwhile, back at the headquarters of Project Quantum Leap, Dean Winchester came to in the waiting room.

Dean and his brother Sam had had a tough life, growing up hunting the monsters many others believed were just fairy tales. Dean and Sam's mother, Mary Winchester, had been killed when he was very small by a demon with yellow eyes, and their father had become obsessed with finding it and killing it, along the way becoming what was known as a hunter, taking on the monumental task of tracking and killing all of the things that go bump in the night.

In fact, just a few months ago Dean and his brother had averted the Apocalypse. The Archangel Michael was supposed to battle with his fallen brother Lucifer to the death. Sam, acting as Lucifer's vessel, had managed to regain control of his body and throw himself (along with Lucifer and pulling Michael and his vessel along) into Lucifer's cage in Hell.

Dean had thought that was the end, that he was going to have to go on without his family. Not only was Sam trapped in Hell, but Bobby (who in reality had been more of a father than his own father had ever been) was dead, and Castiel...well, Cas was gone too.

But then everything had gone sideways, as it had a habit of doing when it came to the Winchesters.

After Dean had been sitting against his car for who knows how long, bloodied and beaten, Cas was suddenly there again. It was God, Cas said. God brought him back. Dean didn't really question it, didn't see the point. He let Cas heal him before also bringing Bobby back.

"Can you get Sam?" Dean had asked, after he had explained what had happened.

"From the Cage?" Cas had asked, thoughtful. He had been about to say no when he saw the pained look on Dean's face. He sighed. "It will take quite a bit of power, but I should be able to get him." And in a flutter of wings, he was gone. That's how Cas always went, using his wings and Angel powers instead of just walking. Though Hell was a little far to walk.

Dean and Bobby had waited in the graveyard where the fight had been, afraid that if they left, Cas wouldn't be able to get Sam back to them. But they didn't need to wait long; in half an hour, Cas was back, greatly weakened, with an unconscious Sam draped across his shoulders.

Over the next few months, their lives had returned to normal. Bobby had gone home and continued working as he had, providing hunters with information they needed on hunts, answering phones as whatever higher-up was required by a hunter who needed some kind of access. Sam and Dean went back to being hunters, but this time Cas came with them. At first, it was just so Castiel could recover his strength, but over time, his relationship with Dean had grown stronger, and even when his strength had returned, he didn't leave.

And now, Dean was sitting up in the waiting room, rubbing his head. He looked around at the blank walls, studying everything silently. It was a little rectangular room with a door on one of the shorter sides. Dean was sitting on a padded bench that seemed more like a cot the more he thought about it. There was a single chair on the other side.

He stood carefully, thinking that maybe something had kidnapped him in the middle of the night. But that didn't make sense. He had been with Cas, and Cas certainly wouldn't have let anything take him. Unless whatever it was had gotten Cas too, but Dean refused to believe that.

There was a sound of a tumbler being turned over and then the door opened, and a man peered into the room. "Good, you're up," he said, stepping to the room.

Immediately, Dean lunged at the man, pressing him against the wall, his forearm pressed against his throat. "Where the hell am I?" Dean demanded.

The old man was alarmed at this turn of events, but he answered calmly. "You're in a government laboratory in the southwestern U.S. in two thousand twelve."

Dean stared at the man, uncomprehending. "Sorry," he said sarcastically. "Mind running that by me again? I must have misheard you." He pressed his forearm harder into the man's Adam's apple.

The man coughed, but repeated himself.

"How can it be twenty twelve? It was just two thousand and ten. Who the hell are you?"

"Do you mind letting me down?" the man asked, his voice strained. "I'll explain, but it's a bit difficult to breathe."

Dean reluctantly backed away. He glanced to the door, but it had shut and locked when the old man walked in.

"Thank you," the man said, rubbing his neck uncomfortably. "My name is Al Calavicci. I helped develop Project Quantum Leap, which was looking into the process of time travel."

"You have got to be kidding me," Dean said, sitting down and rubbing his forehead. "I have had enough time travel for one lifetime, thanks."

Al furrowed his brow, confused, but he continued, "Our funding was being threatened, so my friend stepping into the Accelerator before we were sure it would work. He's been taking little leaps through history since then. Currently, he's leaped to you."

"Me? Why me?" Dean looked up and met Al's eyes.

"Well usually when he goes anywhere, it's to stop something bad from happening. He sets things straight where they went wrong before," Al explained calmly.

Dean stared at him for a moment, and then did the only thing he could do. He laughed.

"Look, Al, I'm sure you mean well, but bad things have happened to me since I was four. Your friend is a little late with the whole 'stopping something bad.' In fact, he picked probably the worst time to jump in. Things have actually been going _well _for me, so if you don't mind, I'd like for you to put me back."

"Sorry kid, can't do it," Al said.

Dean's face hardened, no longer laughing. "Why not?" His voice was deathly calm.

Al was a little worried by this sudden change in demeanor, but he continued with his explanation. "The only way you get out is if you stay in this room until Sam leaps to someone else."

"Sam? What's Sam got to do with this?" Dean was suddenly on his feet, afraid to lose his brother again.

"Dr. Samuel Beckett is my friend, the one leaping from person to person," Al said, studying Dean.

"Oh," Dean said, sitting down again.

"I only came to explain," Al said, turning to leave. "I need to get through to Sam so he can get out of your time as quickly as possible."

"You know, Sammy, my brother, and I- we were on a case to save people. We always are. Your friend is a little late to the game."

"You must not have saved someone who should have been saved," Al said as he left. "Or some turn of events led to something that shouldn't have happened. That's why Sam is there." And then Al was gone, the door locking shut behind him.

"I've saved my share of people," Dean said tiredly to the empty room.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something wrong with Dean, Sam was sure of it.

At first it had seemed like Dean just had a mild hangover, which happened enough that Sam didn't worry about it. But then he had reacted like he didn't know Cas, and that was impossible. Even if something had gone wrong between them, which Sam highly doubted, Cas would have wiped Sam's memories as well. He was thorough like that. He would have just disappeared, he wouldn't have left Sam knowing and Dean clueless.

Then there was the lack of excitement over the pie. Dean would have snatched it at the first opportunity, but this morning he had politely taken a slice, even looking mildly confused as to why eating pie with breakfast was an okay thing to do.

After breakfast, Sam went to get his suit on and told Dean to do the same and grab his FBI badge, since he seemed in need of reminding. Sam made sure to grab the Demon knife and the Colt, since he didn't trust Dean to remember them. Or use them correctly, for that matter. Really, Sam just hoped Cas would show up again and help make sense of this.

When they were ready to leave, Sam grabbed the keys to the Impala, trying to gauge Dean's reaction. Or lack thereof. Dean didn't react in the slightest to Sam just assuming he could drive.

On the way into town, Sam turned possibilities over in his mind. Dean had the anti-possession tattoo, so he wasn't a Demon. There hadn't been signs of a struggle in the motel room, so it was unlikely Dean had been attacked by anything. Besides, Cas had been there with him at least most of the night, and if something had gone wrong, he would have come to Sam first.

So Dean was just...different? It didn't add up. And Sam had enough experience with things that didn't add up to know that something was very, very wrong.

When they got to the scene, the local law enforcement had the place taped off. The attack had happened a day ago, but the house was still a crime scene for the time being. There was an officer stationed by the front door.

Sam led the way up the steps, Dean following nervously behind him. "Ghost sickness, maybe?" Sam thought when he caught a glimpse of the uncertain look on Dean's face. "No, that doesn't make sense."

"Good morning officer," Sam said when they reached the officer at the door. "I'm Agent Nichols, this is Agent Peters." Here he held up his badge, as he always did. Dean was a little slow on the uptake, and still didn't seem sure of himself.

The officer seemed to notice this and raised an eyebrow curiously. "What's the problem son?"

"Excuse my partner, he's new," Sam said, casting a glance at his brother and replacing his badge. "We were sent in to check things out."

"Why's that?" the officer asked.

"We think there might be a connection to another case we've been working," Sam explained.

"You think it's a serial killer?"

"Yeah, something like that," Sam said noncommittally. He nodded toward the door. "May we?"

"Yeah, sure," the officer said, opening the door for them. "If it is a serial killer though, he's a weird son of a bitch."

"That so?" Sam asked.

The officer nodded and shut the door behind them.

"Alright," Sam said. "The report said he was found in the bedroom. Upstairs." He started to head up and noticed Dean wasn't following him. "Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, looking up at him. He seemed distracted. "You go on ahead, I thought I saw something."

"Dean," Sam said, annoyed. Dean didn't seem to hear him, and walked to the back of the house. Sam rolled his eyes and continued upstairs.

"Al, where have you been?" Dean (or rather, Sam Beckett in Dean's body) asked, exasperated, as he approached his holographic friend.

"Sorry, I went to check on the guy," Al said, not elaborating.

"Where am I? And who is this guy?"

"You're in a small town in Oklahoma. There have been a few weird deaths in the last few months," Al said, reading off of Ziggy's screen.

"Yeah, I gathered that part," Beckett said. "Apparently we're here to investigate one, but I don't know Al. These guys use fake badges and have more guns than I've ever seen in one place outside a range. This guy, this Dean guy I'm in, he sleeps with a knife under his pillow."

Al furrowed his brow. "Well that's a little weird. But Ziggy says they help people, so it must come with the territory."

"What does Ziggy say I need to do to get out of here?" Beckett asked, annoyed and slightly frightened. This was helping people?

"I'm right here you know," Ziggy said, sounding miffed.

"Fine, Ziggy. What do I need to do?"

"I'm not sure yet, but you don't need to speak as if I'm not here."

Beckett pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, so I'm just supposed to go along with this?"

"For now, yeah. It's what you've always done," Al said.

"I don't know that I can do this though," Beckett said. "This is way out of the realm of anything I've done."

"Dean?" Sam asked, brow furrowed, as he descended the steps.

"Over here," Beckett said.

Sam walked over to him. "Did you find anything?"

"Wha-No. Must have been a trick of the light," Beckett said as Al said his good luck before stepping through his door and back to his own time.

"Good, because I think you should go have a look at what's up there," Sam said.

"Oh? You think you missed something?"

Sam frowned. "No. But I think you need to get up there and take a look."

"Yeah, sure," Beckett said, heading to the stairs.

Sam watched him go and sighed. He looked up and shook his head. "Alright Cas, I don't know where you ended up, but I need you to come back here. Something's really wrong with Dean. I'm on the first floor of the house at 472 Main Street in a town fifty miles west of Oklahoma City."

There was a flutter of wings and suddenly Cas was there. "What's wrong with Dean?" he asked immediately, his face worried.

"I don't know," Sam said. "He looks like Dean, and he sounds like Dean, but he isn't. I don't know what it is. Was he okay last night?"

"He was normal," Cas said. "I had to leave early. Without Michael, there's fighting within Heaven, and I needed to go make sure the others weren't killing each other. Dean was fine when I left."

"When did you leave?"

"Two or three, I think."

"So sometime between then and when I got back at around eight, something happened to him," Sam said.

"Was there anything off about the room?" Cas asked, his face serious.

"Nothing," Sam said, exasperated. "There was nothing out of place. Just Dean."

There were footsteps on the stairs again, and Dean's voice saying, "Yeah, you're right, that's weird."

Cas immediately stiffened. "That's not Dean," he said.

"Yeah Cas, I know," Sam said. "Dean and I already had a theory going in."

"No," Cas said, voice firm. "That doesn't even _sound _like him."

Dean entered the room and Cas immediately had his angel blade out.

"Who's this?" Dean asked, brow furrowed.

Cas looked like he was about to lunge at Dean, but Sam held him back. "Cas, don't."

Cas turned and glared at Sam. "How did you not recognize that this isn't Dean from the very beginning?"

Dean looked shocked, but it was Sam who said, "Cas, I don't know what you're talking about. He looks like Dean."

"You can see me?" Dean asked Cas.

Cas turned his glare on Dean. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Dean looked between Sam and Cas and sighed. "Well this is a new development. I've almost never had to explain this to anyone," he paused. "It's a little weird."

"Try me," Cas said.

Dean didn't like the murderous look this Cas person was giving him, but he continued. "My name is Dr. Samuel Beckett. I'm a quantum physicist. I developed Project Quantum Leap to explore time travel. I stepped into the machine, and I've been leaping between people ever since."

There was a pause while Beckett let this sink in.

"Time travel?" Sam asked.

Beckett nodded. "I take over a person in a certain time period, to change things that went wrong before. When whatever it is is put right, I leap out and go to someone else."

"Where is Dean?" Cas demanded.

"He's in the waiting room at Project Quantum Leap," Beckett said. "He's safe," he added quickly, seeing the looks Sam and Cas gave him. "He stays there only as long as I'm in his life. When I finish what I need to do, I'll leave and he'll be back."

"And what do you need to do?" Sam asked.

"Ziggy isn't sure. She's a parallel hybrid computer. And her ego is the size of this house. But she knows what happened here the first time, and she lets me know the course of action that is most likely to get me to leap."

"So...? What happened the first time?" Sam wondered.

"I don't know. Al hasn't told me," Beckett said.

"Who's Al?" Cas asked.

"My friend. He keeps an eye on the whole project. He can appear to me and help me figure out what's going on."

As if on cue, Beckett saw Al step back through his door, saying, "Sam, I think Ziggy might be on to something."

"Who are you?" Cas asked, watching Al appear out of thin air.

Al looked up, his eyebrows raised in surprise. He looked at Cas and then to Beckett. "This one can see me," he said.

"Of course I can see you," Cas said. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Cas, who are you talking to?" Sam asked, slightly concerned.

"What do you mean?" Cas asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "He's right there."

"It's Al," Beckett explained. "He appears as a hologram, but it's tuned to my brainwaves. Usually I'm the only one who can see him."

"And there's never been an exception?" Sam said, not buying it.

"No there are," Beckett said. "Children, animals, and the mentally handicapped."

Sam snorted. "Well Cas is none of those things."

"Then how can he see me and Al?"

"I'm an Angel of the Lord," Cas said.

Beckett blinked at them for a moment. "Oh. Well, that's a new one," he said, scratching his head.

"Yes it is," Al said. "Anyway Sam, Ziggy thinks she knows why you're here."

"Great, tell me," Beckett said.

"Okay, I don't like this," Sam said. "Where the hell is he?"

Cas sighed and pressed his first two fingers to Sam's forehead. Sam felt a rush of energy, and suddenly there was a old man standing there with them. And Dean didn't look like Dean, but like a middle aged guy with a grey streak in his hair. "Better?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, I guess," Sam said, surprised.

Cas looked up at the door and vanished just as it opened.

"You almost done in here?" the officer asked.

"Yeah, I think we're just about finished," Sam said, managing to still sound professional. "Just another minute."

The officer nodded and closed the door again.

Cas reappeared, eyeing the door as if to make sure it was going to stay shut. "I think it'd be better if we continued this conversation elsewhere."

"Probably," Sam said. "Doc here and I will meet you back at the motel."

Cas nodded and vanished again. Al said something about being back in half an hour and stepped back through his door.

Beckett stared at the empty space. "So he's actually an Angel?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, clapping a hand on the other man's shoulder and turning him toward the door.

Meanwhile, back at Project Quantum Leap, Dean was pacing the waiting room. He couldn't stop moving. Something bad was going to happen. That Al guy had said so. Except this Doctor guy was supposed to stop it. But if he was supposed to stop bad things that had happened before, how was he supposed to stop it? If Dean hadn't been able to stop it, how was some guy without any experience doing this supposed to stop it?

The tumblers turned over in the lock and the door opened. It was Al, a tray of food and water in his hand.

"Thought you'd be hungry," he said, setting the tray on the cot.

"I'm fine," Dean said, not stopping his pacing.

Al watched him for a moment before saying, "I saw your friends."

Dean immediately stopped and looked Al dead in the eye. "My brother. Is he okay?"

"He's the tall one?" Al asked. Dean nodded. "Yeah, he's fine."

"And my..." Dean struggled for a word. "Cas, is he okay?"

"In the trench coat? He's fine too."

Dean felt a bit of tension leave him. "Good."

There was another silence between them. "That Cas, is he really an Angel?" Al finally asked.

"Yes," Dean said. "And that hunt you pulled me out of? We were going after what looked like a werewolf. Probably a pack. And we had one day left in the cycle to catch them as werewolves before we would have to wait another month. If your guy screws up, a lot of people are going to get hurt."

Al nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't sure what to make of that. "Well, he's there because someone did get hurt. And Ziggy thinks she knows who it was."

"Ziggy? Who the hell is Ziggy?"

"She's our super computer. She knows what happened back on that...hunt? That's what you called it?"

"How? We cover our tracks."

Al shrugged. "She just knows."

Dean sat heavily in the chair. "Who got hurt?" he finally asked.

Al hesitated, seemed to debate lying. He sighed, figuring it would be better to just say it. "Sam Winchester. Your brother. He gets hurt."

"What?" Dean was immediately on his feet again, tears starting to fill his eyes. "You have to put me back. I can't lose him again."

"I can't put you back," Al said. "I'm sorry."

Dean scrubbed at his eyes. "What happened?"

"Ziggy says he was overpowered the first time. It turned him into a monster."

Dean turned his back on Al. Sammy? A werewolf? How had he let that happen?

"Hey now, my friend Sam is there. He'll set it right. He always does," Al said, trying to comfort Dean.

"No offense," Dean said, half-turning around, "but if I couldn't stop it, and Sammy couldn't stop it, and _Cas _couldn't stop it, then your guy doesn't have a prayer. And he needs to find a way to get out of my body. If anyone's going to be there with Sammy when this happens, it's going to be me."


	3. Chapter 3

Dean paced the waiting room. He hadn't touched the food Al had brought him, and he wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed. It felt like a long time, but that could be the stress of being where he was. Or it could be that more time was passing than he thought. Or it was like when he was in Hell and time moved in strange directions. Whatever the reason, he decided he wasn't going to be staying in this room waiting for Beckett to save Sammy.

He went to the door and inspected the lock. He didn't have any of his usual picks. He didn't even have any of his knives. Strangely enough, the door didn't seem that solid, which Dean thought might have been something that would be important. He backed up and braced himself before kicking the door right beside the handle. A shot of pain ran up his leg, but the door held. Dean swore and tried again, this time causing a crack to open up beside the handle. One more kick and the door buckled outward.

Dean stuck his head out and inspected the hallway while rubbing his throbbing leg to dull the ache. The hall wasn't very impressive; the walls were a plain grey and the the floor was tile. The light was fluorescent, but not harsh. There didn't appear to be much going on, though doors lined the hall.

Tentatively, Dean stepped out, expecting some kind of alarm. When none came, he turned right and started walking. There seemed to be more activity this way. Which is to say that slightly more than nothing was happening. There was a room just a few doors down from the waiting room that had a lit sign above it that read, "IN USE." Dean pressed his ear to the door, but heard nothing on the other side, which he found weird. Though not weirder than anything else that had gone on, he supposed.

Further down the hall there was a humming sound. Curious, Dean made his way toward the sound. It was coming from a room at the end of the hall on the left, and when Dean peered through the door, he saw the biggest computer he had seen in his life. It looked like something out of the fifties and took up the entire room, with a keyboard and monitor in the center, just a few feet in the door. After taking a cautious look around, Dean stepped inside and pressed the enter key, just to see what would happen.

"Who's there?" a female voice asked. "I don't recognize you."

Dean turned around, expecting to see someone standing in the doorway. When he saw no one there, he turned back to the computer, pressing a few more keys to test the machine's reaction.

"It's rude to leave a question unanswered," the voice said, and suddenly the keys wouldn't press anymore.

"Who are you?" Dean asked, looking around uncertainly. He was still the only one in the room.

"I asked you first," the voice countered.

"My name is Dean Winchester," Dean said uncertainly.

"Oh, you're the man Doctor Beckett leaped into," the voice said. "I am Ziggy."

Dean looked back at the machine in front of him. "You're the computer."

"Indeed," Ziggy said. "And you should get back to your room."

"Not a chance in Hell," Dean said. "I need to know what's going on back in my life."

"You'll get the memories of the hunt when you get home," Ziggy said.

"Really? Awesome. I still need to know what's going on."

Ziggy sighed, which Dean wouldn't have thought was possible for a computer to do. "I really shouldn't tell you," she said.

"Wait, does Al carry around some kind of device with him that you transmit to?" Dean asked, suddenly getting an idea.

"Of course. I need to be able to communicate with Doctor Beckett from here, and I can't do that without a transmitter."

"Could _I_ get a message through to that transmitter from here? Like a phone across time?"

Ziggy seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Yes, I suppose," she finally said.

"How?" Dean asked impatiently.

"If I explain, will you stop with the attitude and go back to your room?"

"We'll see. Now explain."

"Fine," Ziggy said. "Enter the following commands just as I say."

Back at the motel, Beckett and Sam were explaining their separate situations.

"Are we talking about the same Apocalypse here?" Beckett asked, sitting in a chair and leaning forward with his forearms rested on his thighs. He had already told his story, and Sam had just finished his.

"Yeah," Sam responded from his spot on the bed. "Four Horsemen, the end of days, all that jazz."

"But...? The world goes on? Just like that?" Becket asked, having trouble wrapping his mind around it.

"You're welcome," Sam said.

"Yeah, I guess," Beckett said, running a hand through his hair.

"More importantly," Cas interrupted from where he stood leaning against the door, "you finish what you need to do here and you leave?"

"That's more important than the Apocalypse?" Beckett was a little confused by this. "This Dean guy is that special?"

Cas looked like he wanted to vaporize Beckett, but he restrained himself. "Yes," he said, his jaw clenched.

Beckett furrowed his brow, studying Cas. Before he could make any kind of comment, Al stepped in. "Are we all acquainted now?" he asked.

"I think so," Sam said.

"Good," Al said, holding up the transmitter in his hand. "Ziggy has a theory."

"Thank God," Beckett said. "Let's hear it."

"She says that on this hunt, Sammy here-"

"It's Sam," Sam interrupted.

"Oh?" Al asked. "Your brother called you Sammy."

"Only he can call me Sammy."

"Noted," Al said. "Anyway, Ziggy says Sam was overpowered on this hunt. And...turned, I guess. If that's how you'd put it."

Sam narrowed his eyes at Al. "Turned? You mean I get bitten by a werewolf?"

"That's my understanding, yes," Al said. "You'll have to forgive me, this whole thing doesn't make sense."

"Tell me about it," Beckett said.

"But where you are, this happened in the past, right?" Sam pressed.

"Right," Al and Beckett said in chorus.

"Then tell us where the pack is," Cas said, catching Sam's train of thought. "We can stop this before it starts."

"Ziggy hasn't gotten that far yet," Al said.

"Then tell _Ziggy _to hurry," Cas said, his voice deadly calm.

As if on cue, Ziggy piped up. "I hate to interrupt," she said, "but you have a call."

"Call?" Al asked, whacking the side of the transmitter, thinking maybe there was something wrong with it.

"No need to be rude," Ziggy said, sounding annoyed. "I'm going to put him through anyway."

"Him?" Beckett asked, but then a new voice came through the transmitter.

"Can you guys hear me?"

"Dean?" Sam and Cas asked in unison.

"Boy is it good to hear you guys again," Dean said, sounding relieved.

"How are you doing that?" Beckett asked.

"I found the computer," Dean said simply. "She told me how."

Beckett looked impressed. "I didn't know that was possible."

"You left your room?" Al demanded.

"What, you think I'm gonna sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while you get my brother killed? No thanks dude."

"You need to get back to that room," Al said. "If you're not there, we can't leap."

"Relax. I'll get back there."

"Dean, are you okay?" Cas asked, worried, stepping closer to Al.

"I'm fine Cas," Dean said, his smile coming through his voice. "But I had to know what was going on."

"Well it's definitely the werewolf pack," Sam said. "The body wasn't there anymore when we went to investigate, but there were claw marks on the windowsill and around the room. Looked like a nasty fight."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. You remember the farm we passed on the way into town?"

"You'll have to be more specific. We passed a few."

"The one with the scarecrow at the end of the driveway?"

"The one that looked like the one we were almost sacrificed to?" Sam asked, earning horrified looks from Beckett and Al. "Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

"There's something that's been bothering me about it. The house, not the scarecrow. The paint was peeling on the house, and I thought that was normal, but I've been thinking that it looked like there were claw marks on the house."

"You remember that about a house you saw for a second as you were driving into town?" Beckett asked, impressed.

"Yeah," Dean said, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to remember. "I think you should look into it."

"We will," Sam promised. "Anything else?"

"Don't get bit?" Dean offered. "That seems like solid advice."

"It's not like I _want _to," Sam countered.

"But I do have a question for the other Sam," Dean said.

"What's that?" Beckett asked.

"Can you fight? With a knife and a gun?"

"Not particularly," Beckett admitted. "I've done martial arts in other lives, but I haven't done much with weapons."

"Fantastic," Dean said, his voice bland.

"Why do you ask?" Beckett asked, pretty sure he didn't want the answer.

"Because you can't kill a werewolf in hand-to-hand combat," Dean said.

"Kill one?" Beckett was taken aback. He hadn't signed up for killing anything.

"You need silver," Cas said.

"Of course you do," Al said.

"You're sure there's no other way to get me back there?" Dean asked, sounding desperate.

"I have to leap," Beckett said. "And to leap, I have to change history. And Ziggy says the most likely way for me to get out of this one is to save Sam from being turned into a monster."

"What if Sam just doesn't come?" Cas suggested.

"You want to send my friend in there alone?" Al demanded.

"Yeah, sure," Dean said, sarcasm dripping from his words. "Are you kidding? Cas can go."

"Dean, Cas, I know you mean well, but I'm not sitting this out," Sam said.

"I know," Dean said sadly.

"I'll be fine," Sam said, forcing confidence he wasn't sure he felt.

"I hope so," Dean said. "And don't scratch the car," he added, obviously trying to lift the mood. Sam and Cas smiled at his concern for the Impala.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Sam said.

"Good," Dean said, but his voice was garbled by static. "And don't-" His voice vanished in a cloud of white noise.

"What happened?" Cas demanded.

"I cut him off," Ziggy said. "Boring conversation."

"He was about to say something," Cas said, his voice starting to grow angry again.

"Cas," Sam said. "It doesn't matter. He had a theory about the house. We'll go check it out and go from there."

This didn't seem to make Cas feel any better, but he grudgingly agreed.

"I'd better go make sure he gets back to that waiting room," Al said, stepping through his door to his own time.

"What do you need me to do?" Beckett asked.

"Carry a gun with silver bullets, stay out of the way," Sam said. "The gun you had earlier had silver bullets, so you can just take that one." Sam stood to get the car keys, made sure he had his own gun and a silver knife. "Alright," he said. "Let's get this over with."

He and Beckett began to make their way to the door, but Cas was standing in the middle of the room, staring off into space.

"Cas," Sam said. When Cas didn't respond, he stepped over to the Angel and put a hand on his shoulder. "Cas, what is it?"

Cas blinked a few times, bringing himself back to the present. "It's Heaven," he said.

"Heaven?" Beckett asked. "You can hear it?"

"Yes," Cas said, then turned to face Sam. "Raphael is angry that the Apocalypse wasn't carried out. He wants to form an army to get Michael and Lucifer out of the Cage. I have to get up there."

"Yeah, I understand," Sam said.

Cas seemed like he wanted to say more, but he didn't say anything before he vanished in a flutter of wings.

"Let's go," Sam said to Beckett, turning to leave.

When Dean was cut off, he slammed his hands down on the keyboard. The static remained for a moment before dissipating.

"What the hell Ziggy?" Dean demanded.

"You think I want to hear your sentimental stories? No thank you," Ziggy said.

"Put me back through," Dean ordered, keying in the commands again.

"No can do."

"Why not?"

"Don't want to."

Dean was considering the appeal of tearing the computer to pieces with his bare hands when he heard someone in the doorway behind him. He turned to see Al standing there, not looking pleased.

"You need to get back to that room," Al said.

"And wait for something to happen? No thanks," Dean said.

"You don't seem to get it," Al said, stepping closer. "If you aren't in that room, Sam can't leap. He can't get out of your life. So I suggest you get back there so the second he does what he needs to do, you can get home. Lord knows I want you there."

Dean was fairly certain Al didn't mean that in a well-wisher kind of way. "So I just sit and wait."

"You just sit and wait," Al confirmed, stepping aside to let Dean pass him into the hallway.

Dean figured that as long as Al and the transmitter were here, there wasn't much he could do in the way of communicating directly with Sam and Cas, so he might as well go sit in the waiting room. Maybe he could find something interesting to do, like bang his head against the wall.

If nothing else, Cas was there. Cas would make sure nothing went wrong. Or at least, Dean hoped he could.


	4. Chapter 4

When they pulled up outside the farm, Beckett didn't see anything unusual at first. It just looked like a weathered old farmhouse, though the scarecrow was a little creepy. There were oak trees out front and a swing on the porch. It wasn't until they were right outside it that Beckett noticed the marks on the walls that looked like they were carved with claws. He didn't understand how Dean could have noticed that, but it must have come from hunting these things for so long.

"So what are we going to do?" Beckett asked as they got out of the car and headed toward the house.

"Ask for directions," Sam said, knocking on the door.

Beckett didn't understand what that had to do with anything, since Sam seemed to have a pretty good grasp on where he was and where he was going. He decided against voicing this concern, especially when he heard the lock turn over.

"Hello there," a woman said as she opened the door. She had a pleasant smile on her face, but when she focused on the strangers on her porch, the pleasant look faltered for just a moment. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Yeah, sorry to bother you, but my brother and I were on our way to Oklahoma City and we seem to have lost our way," Sam said smoothly. "Would you mind giving us directions?"

"Of course," the woman said. "You aren't the first to get lost out here."

"I'm sure," Beckett said.

"Oh, you know what?" Sam said, feeling his pockets. "Do you have something to write with? I'm afraid I'll forget the way again if I don't write it down."

"I do. Why don't you come in?" The woman stepped aside so they could enter.

"Thank you," Sam said, stepping inside.

Beckett seemed to be a little more worried about going into a building they thought housed werewolves than Sam was, but the inside of the house was relatively normal, as far as he could tell. The walls were bright and there was a general feeling of home in the air. The sounds of children playing came down from upstairs. There were scratches on the banister, but the house was old, so Beckett didn't think that was too strange.

"Why don't you have a seat?" the woman offered when they entered the kitchen. "I'll go write the directions for you."

"Thanks," Sam said, taking a seat. Beckett followed his lead.

When the woman left the room, Sam was on his feet and busied himself going through the cupboards.

"What are you doing?" Beckett hissed.

"She recognized me. Or us, I guess, since she sees Dean," Sam said. "We don't have much time."

"Recognized you?"

"We hunt these things. Sometimes they know who we are," Sam explained, moving to check drawers.

"So you follow her in? Are you suicidal?"

"Not at the moment," Sam said, opening the refrigerator. "Bingo."

The fridge was filled with Tupperware containers, all containing raw meat. Beckett thought he was going to be sick. "What exactly is that?"

"Hopefully it isn't all human," Sam said as he closed the door. He was about to pull out his gun when he heard footsteps approaching the kitchen and he quickly retook his seat.

"I have your directions," the woman said as she returned, smiling sweetly. She held a folded piece of paper out to Sam.

"Thank you," Sam said, but he didn't reach out to take the paper from her.

The woman frowned in confusion. "Go ahead and take them," she said.

"Can't do that," Sam said.

The woman's expression changed from confused to condescending. "I thought that was why you were here," she said.

"Then you know the terms," Sam said simply.

The woman looked between the two men sitting in her kitchen. "Funny," she said. "I heard your brother was the one who did all the talking."

"Well now I'm the one doing the negotiating."

"Oh I don't think so," the woman said, stepping closer to Sam. "I am."

"And what makes you think that?"

The woman smirked and raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm the one with the pack."

The other werewolves had either been hiding in the wings or had done an excellent job of sneaking up on the three of them in the kitchen. But Sam was very hard to sneak up on at this point, so it was much more likely that they'd been waiting from the time the Impala had parked in front of the house. They were suddenly on the two men in the chairs, holding them down and tying them.

* * *

Dean was sitting on the edge of the cot in the waiting room, his leg bouncing with nervous energy. He kept repeating to himself that Sammy would get out of this and he'd be back in his own body soon, but he didn't like the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He should be there. This shouldn't be left to some amateur, not when Sammy was the one who would have to teach him while on a mission he had supposedly failed.

"Alright Cas," Dean said, looking up and around the room. "I know you can't see me, but I'm somewhere in the southwest US, and you're gonna have to follow my voice from there. I don't like where this is going, and I really think Sammy's in trouble where he is, but I can't get to him. Hell, I can't get anywhere."

"Dean, what are talking about, Sam is-" Cas started when he appeared. But then he stopped, narrowing his eyes as he got a better look at Dean. "You aren't this Dean, are you?"

"No. I'm from two years ago, apparently," Dean said. "When we did the hunt for the werewolves in Oklahoma."

"How are you here?"

Dean was mildly surprised, and he felt his mood deflate further. "You don't remember?"

"I remember I had to leave that hunt as you and Sam were going to the farmhouse. When I got back early the next morning, you had a funeral pyre going for Sam. You told me he was bitten and changed with the others when the full moon was out," Cas said gently.

"I... I shot him?" Dean was glad he was sitting. If he had been standing, he likely would have fainted.

"You didn't have a choice," Cas said.

Dean wiped his eyes and shook his head. "I shouldn't have let that happen."

"How are you here?" Cas asked again.

"There's this guy who travels through time and takes over people's bodies, putting right what once went wrong, as his friend put it. He jumped into my body on that hunt, supposedly to stop whatever happened to Sammy, and that landed me here in this forsaken place," Dean explained. "But you could see him, so I guess he hasn't done his job yet."

"Are you feeling okay Dean?" Cas asked.

"No, I'm not," Dean admitted, though he doubted he was hiding it very well at the moment. "My brother's life is in the hands of an amateur. I need to get back there before he screws it up."

"Dean-"

"Don't you dare tell me I didn't help him the first time through. Don't you dare, Cas."

Cas sighed. "I can't help you," he said. He held up a hand to halt Dean's protest. "You aren't in your own body, and you aren't even in the same time period as the person who is. _Maybe _an Archangel could help, but I can't; it would take much more power than I have."

"Cas," Dean said, the pain evident in his voice. "You have to help me. Please. I need you."

Cas pressed his lips together and looked away, trying to hide the broken look on his face.

"What?" Tears were forming in Dean's eyes.

Cas smiled sadly at him. "You haven't said that in a long time," he said.

"What?" Dean asked again.

Cas just shook his head. "After what happened to Sam, you were a mess, self-destructive again. I had to get you out of a few scrapes when you weren't fighting."

Dean got the feeling Cas was holding something back. "And then what, Cas?" he asked.

A bitter laugh escaped Cas' lips. "You left," he said sourly.

"Left?" Dean asked, staring uncomprehendingly at Cas.

"Left. You got out of the life. You went and found Lisa and Ben, like you promised Sam you would before the fight with Michael and Lucifer."

Dean closed his eyes and hung his head, taking a deep breath.

"I was too much of a reminder," Cas said.

"Am I happy, where I am now?" Dean asked, not opening his eyes.

"I don't know," Cas said sadly. "You told me to stay away."

Dean took another breath and opened his eyes. "I guarantee I'm not," Dean said. "I've lost the two most important people in my life. I'm not okay. I don't care how long it's been."

Cas and Dean looked at each other for a long time.

"If the past is set right, everything goes back to how it was before?" Cas asked, his voice hoarse.

"That's my understanding," Dean replied.

"Then I hope, for all our sake, that it is fixed." Cas had a small sad smile on his face when he vanished.

Dean sat quietly for a moment, trying to get his mind back in working order. This future was too bizarre, almost like the when Zachariah had sent him ahead as some kind of sick warning. But that future hadn't come to pass, and neither would this one. He stood and walked out of the room, which wasn't hard considering the door was still broken. He made the right and found the room that had had the "IN USE" sign lit up last time he had gone by. He was sure that was the room Al used to get to Beckett.

The door stood open and when Dean stepped in and closed it behind him, he saw a flash of bright white light and then he was standing in a basement. Or he assumed it was a basement from the total lack of windows and the staircase that led up.

"Dean?"

Dean turned around to see the two Sams tied to chairs. Their arms were bound behind them, but their legs were free, and that was something Dean thought they could use to an advantage.

"Sammy! You're okay!" A grin spread across Dean's face.

"For now," Sam said.

"You left that damn room again?" Beckett asked.

"It does seem that way. What happened?"

"Went in a little half cocked," Sam said.

"Did they take your weapons?" Dean demanded.

"They think so, but they didn't get all of them," Sam said with a smirk.

"Awesome," Dean said, walking over to them. He went to reach out to Sam, meaning to untie his arms, but his hand went right through Sam's arm.

"You're a hologram," Beckett said. "You can't touch anything here."

"That certainly puts a damper on things," Dean said, trying to force down his rising panic at the thought that he was going to have to watch helplessly while the events played themselves out. "Why'd they bring you down here?"

"Said they wanted to wait until the full moon tonight," Beckett said.

"Good," Dean said. "They'll all be down here asleep for at least twenty minutes before they change."

"Why's that?" Beckett asked.

"If they're awake, they don't change," Sam said. "Not in our experience anyway. Unless they're angry."

"Why was this so difficult then?" Dean asked. If it was really going to be that easy, they shouldn't have failed.

"Not sure yet," Sam said. "But I'm all for not being bitten."

"Me too," Dean said. "Beckett, can you move your arm at all?"

"A little. Why?"

"I have a silver pocket knife in the sleeve of that jacket. If you can move your arm and get it into your hand, you can cut yourself out."

"Good to know," Beckett said, shifting his arm around to try to feel where the knife was.

"You still have one up your sleeve?" Dean asked his brother.

"Always," Sam said, turning his hand over and revealing a pocket knife glinting on his palm.

"Where's Cas?" Dean asked suddenly, looking around. Future Cas had told him he had needed to leave, but he hadn't wanted to believe it.

"Heaven," Sam said. "He said he needed to get up there to try to stop Raphael from forming an army to open Lucifer's Cage again and restart the Apocalypse."

"He's got great timing, doesn't he?" Dean muttered, looking up the stairs. "I'm going up there to see what I can sniff out. Get yourselves out, but don't be too conspicuous."

Upstairs, a whole family of werewolves was congregated in the living room.

"The Winchesters," one said excitedly. "Oh, won't this be something special. Two hunters drop into our laps and they're _these _two."

"They did stop the Apocalypse," one acknowledged. "That's pretty impressive."

"And killed how many of us to get there? I'm all for the world spinning on uninterrupted, but I don't feel like being sent to Purgatory," the first one snapped.

"No, I'm all for eating them," the second assured them. "I just meant that they're a pretty impressive meal."

"Can't I go have a taste?" a young one asked, looking up to a woman who must have been his mother.

"No," the woman said. "We have to wait for the others."

"Well that doesn't sound good," Dean said, counting five werewolves in the room now. He wasn't sure how many there would be when the others got there, but if this turned into an actual fight, it wouldn't end well. Hopefully there'd be enough time to kill them before they turned or this would really go sour. The sun was setting, so the others would likely get there within the next hour.

When Dean got back down to the basement, he found Sam and Beckett sitting in their chairs, rubbing their wrists where the ropes had been tied. Standing beside them was Al, who looked pissed off.

"How many times do I need to tell you to stay in that damn room?" he demanded.

"I'm not sitting around waiting for the end. It's not my style," Dean said. "Besides, you know where I am. As soon as he's done, I go back and get in the room and then back to my own time."

"You can't help," Al reasoned. "There's nothing for you to do here."

"I'll watch. I'm not sitting around to wait."

"Al," Beckett said. "Let him stay. We're getting nowhere telling him where to go."

Dean grinned triumphantly. "Come get me when it's time to leap. I'll be here."

Al sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm getting too old for this."

"You love it as much as I do," Beckett said.

"Doesn't mean I'm not getting too old for it," Al said.

"I feel like we'll be having that same conversation in the future," Sam said thoughtfully to Dean. "You know, if we don't die first."

"We have died," Dean pointed out.

"Did you find out anything useful up there?" Beckett asked.

"There are five werewolves here," Dean said. "They're waiting for others before they kill you though."

"That's encouraging," Sam said. "Beckett, you said you can fight, right?"

"Sure," Beckett said. "It's been a while, but I think I can handle holding some off."

"So we kill as many as we can first," Sam said. "Hopefully there won't be as many left to fight."

"Then hold the ropes so they still look tied and wait for them," Dean said. "If they find you untied you won't have a chance to kill any of them."

Over the next half-hour, Al left through his door, not seeing any point in staying since he knew where Dean was. Sam and Beckett sat in their chairs, holding the ropes over their wrists so they still looked tied if you didn't look too closely. They didn't have much in the way of weapons; they each had a small silver knife, and Sam had retrieved his hidden dagger and had it up his sleeve.

Then the wolves came down- eight of them this time. The three new ones circled Sam and Beckett hungrily, leaning very close to them as if inspecting them. Dean momentarily forgot he was a hologram and tried to attack one of them when he got too close to Sam.

"I'm just impressed you managed to catch them," one of the new ones said.

"They think they're invincible," the woman from before said. "They make stupid decisions."

There was a click as one of the werewolves locked the door at the top of the stairs. "See you in a while boys," he said as he joined the others in a section of the basement that was partially hidden from view by shelves laden with various odds and ends.

After a few minutes, there was silence from the werewolves, save for a bit of light snoring. Sam carefully dropped the rope, his eyes trained on the shelves, waiting for a wolf to come after him. Beckett followed his lead, moving slowly to retrieve his silver knife.

Sam stepped carefully over to the shelves, moving silently. He glanced between the shelves to the other side and saw the werewolves sleeping, piled on one another like a pack of dogs. One twitched in his sleep. Sam knelt to inspect the bottom of the shelving unit, checking to see if it was bolted down.

It wasn't.

Sam leaned his weight into the shelves, and they toppled over, landing heavily on the lycanthropes beneath. As Sam jumped back, he heard yelps and startled scratching as the wolves scrambled to get out from under the shelves. He and Beckett then moved closer, Sam with his silver dagger, Beckett with a silver knife. Sam didn't even hesitate; when he saw one through the wreckage, he stabbed down, hearing a startled cry and then nothing. But then there was growling as the first of them began to turn. One of the young ones, probably no older than seven, jumped at Beckett with his teeth and claws bared. Acting on instinct, Beckett side-stepped, grabbing his attacker by the arm to swing him around and pierce the small chest with his knife. When the small body fell limp, Beckett jumped back, horrified at himself.

But now there were more growls and snarls, and the shelves were being thrown aside so roughly that Sam had to back away to avoid being hit by debris. There were six wolves left; both of the children were already dead. Three leaped at Sam while the other three went for Beckett.

Dean watched, feeling helpless. His eyes never left Sam, who was doing his best to make quick work of the situation, but fighting with a werewolf was like having a wild animal coming after you, which was hard enough when you weren't outnumbered three to one.

For all his confusion, Beckett was a good fighter. He dodged and blocked effectively, getting in a good hit every now and then. He kept a grip on his knife and managed to cut the wolves, even managing to kill one of them, though his face paled when the body fell.

Sam was fighting the three who had shown up especially for the chance to kill the Winchesters, and they were clearly seasoned fighters. Sam was no slouch and even in their wild state they managed to fight effectively against him. One was stabbed and fell, but one gave up on Beckett and jumped at Sam instead, seeming to think he was a better target. Beckett was left fighting the woman, who was vicious and fought dirty with her claws. Beckett was bleeding from a gash on his right arm, but he was ignoring it enough to continue the fight.

Sam had managed to drop another wolf, losing his dagger in the process. He grabbed his knife in time to stab another, but the last one grabbed him from behind, his jaw dangerously close to Sam's neck.

"Sammy!" Dean yelled, running forward even though he knew it was pointless. Sammy was done, again.

Beckett heard Dean and managed to throw the wolf he was fighting aside, running toward Sam. He tackled the wolf that had a grip on Sam, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him away. Beckett landed hard on his back, the wolf on top of him. Sam, recovering quickly, retrieved his dagger from the chest of a dead werewolf and stabbed the one on top of Beckett. Beckett felt the tip of the dagger on his shirtfront, but it didn't cut the fabric.

As Beckett threw the dead wolf aside, the last one rushed at Sam, but Sam was prepared. He turned in time to have the wolf impale herself on the dagger, coughing as she fell to her knees and falling silent as she toppled onto her side.

In the moment of tense silence that followed, Dean wasn't sure if Sam was finished or not. Sam and Beckett looked around the room, still alert and waiting for a threat.

"That's it," Dean said, turning to look around the room.

"Yeah," Sam said, his frame relaxing.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked uncertainly.

Sam ran his hand over his neck, where the wolf's jaw had been. The skin was smooth. A grin spread across his face. "I'm fine," he said with relief.

Dean felt the tension leave him. Sammy was okay. He turned to face Beckett. "I guess I should thank you," he said.

Beckett shook his head. "It's what I do," he said.

"No, Dean's right," Sam said. "You saved me."

"You're welcome, then," Beckett said with a half smile. "I guess."

"So you leap when I get back to the waiting room?" Dean asked.

"That's how it goes," Beckett said. "Al will be back to get you, since you need Ziggy to open the door."

"Of course you do," Dean said, but he couldn't bring himself to be annoyed.

"Let's go find the guns they took," Sam said, heading toward the stairs. "Then we torch the place."

"Isn't that extensive?" Beckett asked, following Sam up.

"Just making sure they stay dead," Dean said.

"They have a habit of not staying dead?" Beckett asked, a little freaked out.

"Sometimes," Dean said with a shrug.

"Great," Beckett said.

It didn't take long to find the guns. They had been left on the coffee table in the living room, probably because the silver on their handles burned the werewolves' hands and couldn't be carried for too long.

Sam got the accelerant from the trunk of the Impala and went back into the house to douse as much as he could.

"So this is what you do for a living," Beckett said, checking to make sure the bandage on his arm was snug.

"Glamorous enough for you?" Dean asked.

Beckett laughed. "You know, I think I'll stick with what I do."

"That's probably for the best."

A few minutes later, Sam exited the house. He took out a matchbook and lit one, throwing it onto the trail of accelerant he had made that led into the house. As the fire spread, he made his way back to the car.

The three of them sat there for a while, watching the fire. The farm was at least a mile from the nearest neighbor, so it would be a long time before authorities were notified of the fire, especially since the night was overcast and the smoke blended in with the clouds in the sky.

"Is it sick to say this is peaceful?" Beckett asked.

Sam and Dean laughed. "Maybe you should be a hunter after all," Sam said.

"I don't know about that," Beckett said with a smile.

After a few more minutes of silence, Al reappeared.

"It must have all worked out," he said. "Ziggy says it's time to go home."

"Good," Dean said. "I'd like to be useful again for once."

"I'm glad you're okay kid," Al said to Sam. Sam nodded his thanks and Al took Dean's arm, leading him through a door back to Project Quantum Leap.

"Your guy isn't so bad," Dean told Al as they stepped back into the hallway.

"I guess you mean that as a compliment?" Al asked, but he didn't sound annoyed.

"Yeah, I do," Dean said. "And you aren't so bad yourself, I guess."

They stopped outside the waiting room. "You know, I don't mind you so much either," Al said, a slight smile playing on his lips. "No get back to your brother."

Dean took a deep breath and stepped back into the waiting room. There was a flash of bright white light and suddenly he was back in Oklahoma, leaning against the Impala and watching the farmhouse burn. He looked down at himself and ran his hands over his shirt to make sure it was really his body. His forearm was bandaged, so he figured the injury Beckett had sustained was transferred to him, but considering the circumstances, he didn't mind.

"Dean?" Sam asked.

Dean looked up to see Sam staring at him. "Sammy," he said, relief coloring his voice. He didn't even hesitate before wrapping his brother in a hug. Sam hugged him back, and they gripped each other tight for a minute before pulling away.

"Let's hope that never happens again," Sam said.

"Believe me, I've been hoping that since I woke up in that damn room."

They climbed in the Impala, Dean taking his place behind the wheel.

The next morning, as they were packing their things at the motel, there was a familiar flutter of wings that signaled Cas was back. As soon as Dean saw him, he crossed the room and hugged him. He didn't like to admit it, but after seeing future Cas, he had been afraid that he wouldn't see his Cas again.

Cas pulled back after a moment. "It worked then?"

"Beckett's not wearing my body anymore, is he?" Dean asked.

Cas grinned at him.

"How was Heaven?" Dean asked.

"It's fine, for now," Cas said, pulling Dean close again and savoring the feeling of being together.

Dean heard the door close as Sam left, probably heading to grab a bite to eat as an excuse to give Cas and Dean some privacy. Dean laughed then, though he wasn't sure at what.

"What's so funny?" Cas asked, pulled away slightly so he could look Dean in the eyes.

"Nothing," Dean said, waving the question off. "I'm just glad to be back."

Cas smiled again. "I'm glad you're back," he said, and then he pressed a kiss to Dean's lips.

* * *

After the light dissipated, Beckett realized he was sitting at a desk, looking down at a book that was written in Latin.

Looking around, Beckett saw he was in a library in someone's home, a nearby window looking down over a river. There were books with titles in different languages, and when he looked back to the open book in front of him, he recognized the words for 'silver,' 'weakness,' and 'kill.'

He was in another hunter.

"Oh boy," he muttered.


	5. Chapter 5

Beckett jumped when the phone hanging on the wall beside him rang. Answering telephones was never something he liked doing when he was at the very beginning of a new leap, but someone else came into the room at that moment and said, "Well, are you going to answer it or what?"

Uncertainly, Beckett took the phone off the hook. "Hello?"

"Oh, hey Rufus," came the voice at the other end, sounding surprised and nervous. "Not to be a prick, but is Bobby there?"

Beckett hoped Bobby was the man standing in front of him. "Bobby?" he asked.

The other man had moved to a bookshelf across the room and now glanced back over at Beckett.

"Guy on the line wants to talk to you," Beckett said, holding the phone out.

Bobby creased his brow and crossed to where Beckett was sitting. "Why me? You've got more brains about this than I do."

Beckett shrugged and stood, still holding the phone out to Bobby. "No idea, but he asked for you."

Bobby took the phone and Beckett moved out from behind the desk to let Bobby take a seat. He then took the opportunity to study the books on the shelves and try to get his bearings. There were a few newspapers scattered around the room, some local and some national. All of them had dates in the early 1990s, so Beckett assumed that's when he must be. The guy he was in was called Rufus, and this guy with the rusty hair and beard was Bobby. Both were hunters, and apparently Rufus was more experienced than Bobby, which did not sit well with Beckett at all, since he still knew next to nothing about all this hunting nonsense.

"You're sure they're Demon signs?" Bobby was asking, his voice betraying just a hint of anxiety.

This question did not sit well with Beckett at all, as he was convinced it was smarter to be decidedly against the idea of going up against Demons, especially since Sam Winchester had told him the story of the Apocalypse and the role a certain Demon had played in the start of all that. And there was also the fact that Bobby's voice didn't sound too confident, so Beckett was inclined to believe Bobby was against going up against Demons as well.

"Alright, and where are you?" Bobby asked, searching out a pen and scrap of paper. He scratched out a location and said, "Yeah, we'll take care of it."

"We?" Beckett thought, slightly alarmed. "Who's we?" If Bobby was giving hunting advice over the phone, he thought he could handle that. If Bobby planned on taking him along on another God-forsaken hunt, for Demons no less, he thought this was surely the leap he wouldn't come back from.

"Lincoln, Nebraska," Bobby said, hanging up the phone. "There's a town half an hour north of it that's got a Demon problem."

"Glad we aren't there," Beckett said, trying to brush it off. He hoped he didn't sound as terrified as he felt. Then a thought struck him: where was he exactly, and how did he know he wasn't just down the street?

Bobby raised an eyebrow at Beckett. "The kid's scared to death. He's never gone up against a Demon. You have, and-"

"You mean you haven't?" Beckett asked, forcing his voice to remain level and decidedly not-panicked.

Bobby winced almost imperceptibly. "I hardly think Karen counts. And we've only come up against one since then; it's not like Demons are crawling out of Hell every day. Or even every year."

"But there's one in Nebraska."

"That's what all the signs are pointing to, and the hunter who's there is a kid, and he asked for help."

"He had to talk to you to ask for help? Am I that intimidating?"

"To a kid who's been in the game for only a couple of years? Yeah, you are. You've been doing this a lot longer than a lot of us have, Rufus."

"Yeah, maybe too long," Beckett muttered. This might only be his second leap into a hunter, but he was already convinced he wasn't cut out for it.

Bobby decided to let this go. "I told him we'd help him. We can be there in just a couple of hours and get this worked out before anyone else gets hurt."

Beckett sighed. "Well, we can't just let a Demon walk free," he finally agreed.

"I'll get the salt, you get the holy water," Bobby said, leaving the room.

When Beckett was alone, he decided it was a good time to panic. He let his thoughts jump around in his skull. The thought that cropped up most often was "Why do I have to deal with these people at all? What happened to normal people with normal problems?"

Not that he thought hunters weren't helping; quite the opposite. They seemed to be tough people who cared about others, and that was great, but Beckett didn't see himself as a person who had the starch to run around killing things that were intent on killing him.

"You know, I like this Rufus guy a lot more than that Dean character," Al said around the cigar in his mouth, stepping through his door and fiddling with controls on Ziggy's transmitter. "He didn't attack me when I walked into the waiting room, for starters. He said he could use a break anyway. And a bottle of some kind of whiskey."

"You're kidding," Beckett said, unable to comprehend how Al could be talking about this and not about this leap that was bound to end badly for Sam Beckett.

"Hand to God," Al said, taking the cigar from his mouth and holding up his hand for effect. "He just asked for a drink. Said he'd take a nap."

"I don't care, Al," Beckett said, exasperated. "What the hell am I supposed to be doing?"

"Something with Demons," Al replied, unconcerned as he read from Ziggy's screen.

"Yeah, I gathered." Beckett shook his head to clear it and looked around the room, noticing a doorway that led to a kitchen. He figured that was the first logical place to look if he was going to find holy water. Luckily, he had been a priest in a past leap, so he knew how to bless water if he needed to. "But what am I supposed to be doing? And who are these guys?"

Al followed Beckett to the kitchen while navigating Ziggy's screen for information. "Well, Bobby's a hunter who was dragged into this mess when his wife, Karen, was possessed by a Demon and he had to kill her."

"Ouch," Beckett said, checking cabinets for holy water.

"Rufus is the hunter who helped him exorcise the Demon and cover up Karen's death. Ziggy says Bobby only goes on occasional hunts now, and keeps an eye on the phones to help other hunters with their situations. Apparently there's always someone who does that and the last guy was killed hunting..." Al paused, trying to figure out how to pronounce the word on the screen. After a moment, he gave up. "Hunting something that starts with an 'R.' Anyway, Bobby has only come up against one Demon since his wife's death."

"And now there's another." Beckett found a flask with a cross engraved on its sides, and when he opened it he found it contained what looked like plain water.

"Yeah, and that isn't the worst part. The last time they were against a Demon, Bobby panicked. He couldn't get rid of it."

"Have you found it yet?" Bobby asked, entering the room with two duffel bags slung over his shoulders. Noticing the flask in Beckett's hand, he said, "Took you long enough."

"You think I know where you keep your stuff?" Beckett asked, screwing the lid back on the flask. He grabbed a second holy water flask from the cabinet and stuffed one into each of the duffel bags Bobby had plopped on the table. He tried to ignore the shotguns that also occupied the bags.

Slinging one of the bags over his shoulder, Beckett followed Bobby out into the yard, which was littered with old cars. Some of the cars were rusted out and looked useless (even for parts) while others still looked like they could be convinced to start. Bobby led the way to a blue car, throwing his bag in the backseat before taking a seat behind the wheel. Beckett set his bag beside Bobby's and took his spot in the passenger seat. Al, who had vanished when Bobby entered the kitchen, reappeared seated behind Bobby.

"The good news is Ziggy says no one died on this hunt the first time, so you don't need to worry about saving anyone," Al said, reading from the screen as Bobby pulled out of the salvage yard. "Well, there's no one who died the first time who needs to be saved this time."

"And the bad news?" Beckett asked under his breath, rubbing his chin in the hope that Bobby wouldn't notice he'd said anything.

"What was that?" Bobby asked, glancing over at Beckett.

"I said this is bad news."

"Which is why the kid asked us to help him."

"Technically, he asked you," Beckett pointed out.

"And I need your help," Bobby said. "I can't exorcise the thing. You remember what happened last time."

"Actually Sam," Al chimed in, "he needs to exorcise it. Ziggy says there's a ninety percent chance that you getting Bobby to exorcise the Demon himself is what will get you out of here."

"Sure you can exorcise it," Beckett said to Bobby. "You know how to do it."

"Do you not remember what happened last time?" Bobby demanded. "I can't do it."

"That was years ago," Beckett said, waving off Bobby's concern.

Al took advantage of the heavy silence to continue. "Last time, Rufus took care of this Demon too, and when Bobby was helping those Winchester kids with the Apocalypse business-" here Beckett shook his head slightly, a little surprised that this leap was so closely tied to the one he had just left "-he wasn't able to help with the Demon problem."

"I need a drink," Beckett said, feeling as if his head would explode.

Bobby glanced over again and when he turned back to the road he said, "There's a flask in the glove compartment. It's not your whiskey, but it'll have to do."

Beckett decided not to worry about whether this was legal or sanitary and rummaged around in the glove compartment, finding a plain flask and unscrewing it. He wasn't sure what was in it, but it burned on the way down.

Al eyed Beckett uncertainly. "Easy on the booze Sam. You don't want to be caught without your senses." With that, he disappeared again.

"Bobby'll take care of the Demon," Beckett thought, taking another swig. "He doesn't have a choice. I don't know how to."


	6. Chapter 6

Beckett lost track of the hunters. He lost track of the Demons and vampires and vengeful spirits. He realized that on his first normal leap after the hunters, he almost didn't want to solve the problem and leap, for fear he'd end up with another of those hunters.

He discovered Demons could see him just as Angels could, but he always found a way to avoid explaining his situation to any other hunters he might have been with. Which wasn't really hard since his go-to argument was that the Demon was lying and trying to get them to turn against each other.

He had the words for the exorcism memorized by the third hunt. He knew now why hunters were mistrustful of people. Even when he was on a normal leap, he kept himself on alert and knew where he could get salt at a moment's notice.

And suddenly he was more tired than he had ever been.

Leaping for two decades had certainly taken its toll on Dr. Samuel Beckett, but it was nothing compared to having to fight for his life against the supernatural.

_Just one more leap, _he would tell himself. He had known for a while how to stop leaping, but he had never seen a reason to; he was helping people and making the world a better place than he had found it, and he had thought he could deal with that. But when more and more of his hunts involved a Rugaru or a Wendigo or a Poltergeist, he couldn't seem to enjoy it anymore.

"Why don't you come home?" Al asked gently. Beckett was pouring salt over the bones at the bottom of a grave.

"Just one more," Beckett said, ditching the empty salt box and grabbing the accelerant.

"Even if that means you have to hunt again?"

"Even if it means I have to hunt again," Beckett repeated, dropping a match onto the doused remains.

The thing was, every time Beckett said _one more, _he was hoping he would get a normal leap. And every time he had a normal leap, some part of him hoped he was done with the hunting leaps, and so he would leap again. And every time he leaped again, he would hunt again, and hope for a normal leap.

"You keep saying 'one more' Sam," Al said. "At some point you have to stop."

Beckett was silent a moment as he watched the flames char their fuel. "Just one more," he said quietly.

As if on cue, there was a flash of blinding blue light, and Beckett felt his body shift. He was no longer upright, instead lying on a couch. There was a book on his chest, as if he'd fallen asleep with it there. He inspected the book, but didn't recognize it. At least it looked like a regular novel. He groaned and shifted himself into a sitting position.

"Feeling better Sammy?" came a familiar voice from across the room.

Beckett felt his whole body stiffen when he glanced toward the voice. Two men leaning over a book, one dark-haired and wearing a trench coat, the other blonde and gazing in Beckett's direction. A thousand thoughts raced through Beckett's mind (_Shit. __Why? Why _these_ two? I couldn't have had a _normal _leap? My last leap and I have to spend it with these two clowns?_) but all that came out of his mouth was "Oh boy."

The dark-haired man's hand froze over the book. His gaze turned to Beckett unnaturally quickly. Beckett would have been afraid if he hadn't known whose body he was currently occupying.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel asked. His voice was calm, but it sent a chill up Beckett's spine.

"Uh, Cas?" Dean asked. "You feeling okay?"

Cas didn't move his gaze even an inch when he reached out and touched his first two fingers to Dean's forehead. Dean managed to get out a quick "Hey! Wha-" before he blinked confusedly and his gaze on Beckett hardened. "You again?"

"Believe me, this is _not _where I want to be right now," Beckett said with a hollow chuckle.

"What do we need to do to get you to leave?" Dean asked.

"Gee, thanks," Beckett said. His voice was sarcastic, but in reality he had been wondering the same thing. "I just got here. Al hasn't had a chance to get the stats from Ziggy yet. He probably hasn't even checked on your brother yet."

"Shit," Dean muttered, looking back down at the book.

"What? Another hunt? What is it?" Beckett asked, getting to his feet uneasily. Cas was still staring him down, very clearly not in the mood to deal with Beckett. Though, if the last time they ran into each other is any indication, Cas wouldn't ever really be in the mood to deal with him.

"No case," Dean said. "It's been pretty quiet, actually."

"Pity," Beckett said. "I would actually be able to _help _this time, and there isn't even a case."

"How could you possibly help?" Cas asked, eyes narrowed.

"You know, I _did _actually help last time," Beckett said, raising an eyebrow at him. "And I can't even begin to tell you how many hunts I've done since I was here last."

"And you've lived," Dean said, eyeing Beckett with new-found respect and allowing himself to be mildly impressed. "How many?"

"Hell if I know," Beckett replied. He looked around at the massive library around him, not spying any widow to the outside world. "Where am I, exactly?"

"Lebanon, Kansas," Dean said.

"But when?"

"Two thousand eleven," Cas said.

"Lovely," Beckett said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright, so if there isn't a case at the moment, what else can I help with? Might as well do something."

* * *

Sam was only moderately distressed when he awoke to find himself in the tiny waiting room.

He was on his feet almost as soon as he was conscious enough to realize he wasn't napping on a couch in the bunker, but when he took a good look around, he remembered how Dean had described his experience almost a year ago when Sam Beckett had briefly taken over his life. This looked exactly how Dean had described the waiting room, so Sam figured that's where he must be.

It was a little disturbing to know that someone else was walking around with his face, especially since that hadn't ended well in the past, but since he knew there was nothing he could do about it (and that Beckett wasn't going to run around murdering people with Sam's face) he decided to just wait it out. Maybe he'd go find a way to transmit to Dean and Cas like Dean had done last year.

Sam looked up when he heard a tumbler turn over in the lock. The door swung open to reveal the old man Sam remembered as Al holding a tray of food.

"Aw hell," Al said, speaking around his cigar, when he recognized who it was.

"Nice to see you too," Sam said. "What am I in for?"

Al sighed, setting the tray down and taking his cigar in his first two fingers. "We're not sure yet. Ziggy's running scenarios, but we have no clear solution."

"Great," Sam said sarcastically.

"Well, what was the case you were working?" Al asked. "That could give us some kind of clue."

Sam shook his head, pursing his lips slightly. "We weren't working a case," he said. "We haven't had a case in two weeks."

"Not at all?" Al asked, disbelief shaping his features.

Sam frowned slightly. "None. Your guy doesn't seem to have very good timing with us."

"No, I guess not," Al said, the gears in his mind working overtime. "Nothing was starting to look weird? At all?"

"Look, Al, the only weird thing is that _nothing weird is going on_. It happens sometimes. Things go quite for a while." Sam considered this for a moment before amending, "Well, it doesn't usually happen with us. We aren't that lucky. But I'm certainly not complaining."

They were silent a moment, Sam watching for a response, Al trying to sort his thoughts out.

"So Sam's on a leap into one of the best hunters on the planet, and there isn't even a hunt?"

Sam knit his brows in confusion. "You think I'm one of the best hunters on the planet?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Al said with a wave of his hand. He took a pull from his cigar before saying, "We've had leaps with quite a few other hunters, and believe me, some of them would not _shut up _about the Winchesters."

"That can't be a good thing" Sam said, not buying it. "I know plenty of hunters who want nothing to do with us."

"No, they still don't want anything to do with you," Al confirmed. "But they're pretty impressed with you. They respect you, whether they want to actually work with you or not."

"Well that's encouraging, if not what I was expecting to hear," Sam said, mildly impressed but still a little confused. "Exactly how many hunters have you come across?"

"Enough. More than enough," Al said pointedly. "I've tried to tell that son of a bitch to give it a rest and come home before he gets himself killed, but he's been determined to keep at it."

"Who, Beckett?" Sam asked.

"Who else would I be talking about?" Al countered, starting to get annoyed.

Sam shrugged. "It's the life," he said. "When you get into it, it's hard to get out."

"Yeah, well, he said one more leap, and now we don't have a case to get him out!"

Sam studied Al for a minute, watching the older man drag on his cigar. "Are you and Sam close?" he asked.

"Close?" Al asked, starting slightly at the question. "Yeah, we're close. We've been friends a long time. I've kept him from getting stuck for the last twenty years. Hell, he leaped back and helped me get my relationship with my wife back in order."

A pained look crossed Sam's face. "Then I'm really sorry you had to deal with hunting these things, because there's no way he's still himself after all that."

"No, he isn't," Al said sadly. "So if you come up with anything, and I mean _anything_, that might be relevant to getting him out of there, you let me know."

"Yeah, sure," Sam said. "But isn't that what Ziggy's for?"

"Ziggy can't solve all our problems, kid."


End file.
